Path: news.net.uni-c.dk!noatun.mjolner.dk!mail-to-news From: Arne Hueggenberg Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta Subject: Re: Mjolner 5.2.2, Bravo & praise. Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:03:03 +0200 Organization: Sports & Bytes GmbH Lines: 98 Sender: lbr@mjolner.dk Approved: mailtonews@cs.au.dk Message-ID: References: <002c01c1e49f$88a19b70$6501a8c0@server> <200204160930.g3G9Ur321610@emil.nef.wh.uni-dortmund.de> <3CBBD548.893CAB01@skynet.be> NNTP-Posting-Host: bifrost.mjolner.dk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.net.uni-c.dk 1018974396 20254 130.225.4.254 (16 Apr 2002 16:26:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.net.uni-c.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 16:26:36 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Mailing-List: contact usergroup-help@mjolner.dk; run by ezmlm X-No-Archive: yes X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.4] In-Reply-To: <3CBBD548.893CAB01@skynet.be> X-Original-Message-ID: <200204161501.56457.zalaster@nef.wh.uni-dortmund.de> Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.lang.beta:13202 On Tuesday 16 April 2002 09:39, you wrote: > Arne Hueggenberg wrote: > > Actually, publishing old Versions Under the GPL is not so terrific an > > Idea. Leaving the Free Software Ethics out of the Discussion and coming > > from the Open Source Angle publishing this would counteract most of the > > benefits one could hope to garner from a move like this. Bugfixes users > > of the old version might develop might already have been developed for > > the 'Commercial Verison' thus leading to duplication of effort. Additinal > > libraries developed for the old version might not work with the > > 'Commercial Version', etc > > Assuming that that the released system is supposed to be 'Mjolner', > sure. > But this is not what I tried to say, I guess I tried to say too much in > a too awkward way. > > Releasing the old mjolner system under GPL would totally cut the strings > metween mjolner and the system. and thats a problem, not the solution > Lets say the GPL system was called Midgard. > > Midgard is not supposed to benefit from gugfixes and improvements from > Mjolner, the intention behind giving something away should not be to > force oneself to give away even more :-) > > The intention must be the inverse: That Mjolner benefits from bugfixes > and improvements to the Midgard tool, excluding of course, the bugfixes > they have already made themselves. and mjolner wont get them > What this would do, would be making it easier to get some economical > benefit: > > A bugfix does no longer _Have_ to happen at the Mjolner site, it can > come from anywhere, as long as it is relevant to the current release. > > A BSD or Linux-Alpha version of the compiler could be developed by > anyone. wich they wont be able to use in their commercial version > And all this can happen while maintaining a commerical version of the > Mjolner software, since all the 'free stuff' comes from Midgard! > > It sounds like a good idea, but it is not rellay mine, of course, lots > of companies do similar things ... > > The important thing would have to be making the 'free' stuff 'really > free' while maintaining the potential for making money on the system. The scheme you propose would be equivalent to exploiting Open Source Programmers, and speaking as one of them, we dont take lightly to being exploited. Why would i be willing to let a commercial company take my work and make money off it if all they do is figurativly speaking 'thow me some old bones' What would happen is either a) i take the old GPL'ed release, hack it up (new compilers, gtk-env/guienv support for gtk, bugfixes) and keep it under the GPL, keeping everything under my own copyright, thus forbidding mjolner to EVER use my code commercially unless they comply with the GPL, maybe even going so far as to search their commercial version for code looking like mine and the claiming they derived it and sending cease and desist letters or more likely b) just ignore someone trying to feed me old bones and look for something juicier people just dont like being exploited, period If you want the help of the OSS community you have to deal with them fairly, and people who deal with us fairly get treated fairly in turn. Now, lets contrast this this with a Dual licensing approach. Mjolner puts out BETA and the tools under the GPL. That means any work using any of the Base Libraries (and as, if my memory of how the fragment system works doesent fail me, that would mean every program developed with it) would have to be GPL. Anyone wanting to do commercial work with beta would have to get a commercially licensed version. People see that they are being treated nicely, and thus wont as a rule have a Problem with assigning copyright for patches to mjolner, thus enabling mjolner to integrated those patches into subsequent release. Things like gtk-env/guienv-gtk (wich IMO is desperatly needed, as motif is on the way out, if you dont belive this go check whats the soon to be standard desktop on most commercial unixes) will most likely be licensed LGPL, so they too will be available for use by the commercial developers, though any work done on them will have to be shared. As Bruce Perens puts it so succintly 'share and share alike' > Atle -- Arne 'zal' Hueggenberg